I admire this dude's PR savvy and cringe at the Independent's naiveté in publishing this lengthy puff piece. That headline is not doing him any favors, though, as it just sets him up for failure and attack. In any case, he is a real estate developer. That is all that you need to know about him. He might not be a bad person, but he is certainly out to turn the maximum profit. Whatever "creativity" he brings to the situation is first and foremost in service of that goal.

'Twas just a thought... your assumptions are a bit cynical too, you might note. Nothing about what I said would suggest that I lack compassion or empathy, just that I happen not to believe that this, I am sure very nice woman, can commune with bears. Indeed, I have considerable compassion for the bear and it was my general thought that she was in fact projecting her own crap onto his situation that led me to post. Per my beliefs about the situation she is speaking for another sentient being, which is not cool even if well motivated. That's all. Peace be with us all.

Wow, the superiority complexes are so thick here you could cut them with a silver wedding cake server. A lot of entertainment is about escaping, if watching Kim and her sisters is how some people want to escape what is wrong with that? Is it much different than the Brits (and a good many Americans) drooling over the royals? People like to watch rich people get all dressed up and act fancy for all kinds of reasons I'm sure. Maybe it's not your cup of tea but that doesn't make you better than these people, you know. Also, it certainly does not make these people stupid. Just saying... get over yourselves.

Um, no. Sure, there are people who are more in touch with nature etc. No, I do not buy that Laura (who I'm kinda thinking may also be 'onewithnature'... just a cynical, human guess there) can tell us what the bear's experience of the world is. Educated guesses? Sure, and if she wants to present them as such that would be just dandy. What is not so dandy is this, her projecting her various disappointments with the human race onto some bear. You could even argue that she is furthering his victimization here, putting words in his mouth that, you know, aren't there. I know we live in a far out town and I can't blame the Indy for wanting to represent this, but this is a bridge quite too far.

Well, actually, it is a lawyer's job to try to defend his client with whatever defense might work. A classic example of defense is as follows: You say that my dog bit you. For starters, I don't have a dog. If I do have a dog, he definitely didn't bite you. And if he did bite you, it definitely wasn't my fault. Three stories whose truth is mutually incompatible, but that is not the point. The defense is trying to introduce reasonable doubt, that is their job. This is our system. Think of all of the ways in which the deck is often stacked against the defendant and you may understand better why this is ok. If you don't get it, there are other systems you could go participate in. Good luck to you. I hear China is pretty sweet. Sweden, apparently, has quite robust free speech laws. Maybe they'd like you there.

Not true. Chipotle is a publicly traded company and, as such, is owned by it's shareholders. Per Wikipedia: From 1998 to 2006, McDonald's Corporation owned a majority interest in Chipotle, but fully divested their interest in 2006.